The Knitting Project

The Knitting Project is the first community project from FNDMT, a Portuguese textile manufacturing company that aims to connect the high-quality standards of the local industry with designers and technologists across Europe, working together to show how beautiful technology can be.

Turning pixels into loops

We’ve invited two artists, Anna Niestroj, a digital pattern designer based in Berlin, and Graça Paz, a painter from Porto, to develop this textile experiment with us. Our point of commonality is we all share the spirit of the women of Bauhaus, honouring the power and innovation they’ve brought to art, mainly to textiles, one century ago. Today, with The Knitting Project, we understand that we are developing a similar disruptive movement, understanding the knitting machines and changing the system behind them.

Anna and Graça have created three patterns each to be turned into beautiful jacquard knits in the shades of neon, pastel, and B&W. We’ve turned their artworks into digital files to be read by the machines, which is done so in a very experimental way. We are creating such things as 3D effects, using different yarns and stitches, in a way to understand the infinite possibilities of a knitting machine.

#reprogramme themachines

Did you know that the first computer was a knitting machine? The mechanics behind it was based on punch cards, creating a code in which only some of the needles would go through the holes, crossing yarns in a way to show the designed pattern. Later, the same punch cards were the inspiration for the binary code, which is the basis of coding as we know it.

Today, modern textile machines recognize a digital file like the old punch cards; simply: 1 pixel = 1 needle + 1 loop. It means that every textile machine can be hacked, reprogramming it to rearrange the needles, resulting in all kinds of patterns and textures. This opportunity to #reprogrammethemachines was the trigger for The Knitting Project.

Made in Europe and sustainable

Producing locally is not only a statement of quality, as we truly believe in our local manufacturer, but is a sustainable move. Keeping our production close to us reduces our carbon footprint, and we can make sure of the local sustainable issues.

Today, the most sustainable thing to do in terms of materials, is to use existing ones. This is why we are using yarn in stock, and not producing new packaging. But one might ask, how are we going to deliver the products? The answer is: using existing packaging,

Every day, thousands of card boxes come to our offices, to our work spaces, and to our homes. And what we usually do with them? Throw them away. The amount of waste from online purchases is unbearable. That’s why we have decided to use these existing packages to make our own. You will see how pretty they will be, and more importantly, how low the environmental impact of our deliveries will be.

We are using existing materials, as the yarn is from Europe as well, part of the manufacturer’s remaining stock, to develop high-end knits in Northern Portugal, complying with the circular economy model for Europe. Also, the same yarn is being used to create different designs. No new yarn will be wasted, and no extra purchases will be needed.

We are fully aware that we are using some polyester in the yarn (you can read about the composition here), and we are conscious that we can’t recycle mixed yarns. But as we’ve said, they already exist, and we made a design that could be compatible with it, giving this existing yarn a proper destination, in a high-quality product that will not be needed to be recycled for decades. It will remain fashionable and useful for a long time.

But, if at some point you decide to give it away or recycle it, you can ship it back to us, and we will find a proper destination. We are not going to sell it again, but re-use it in a different form, in compliance with the full circular economy model.

Production Credits

Artists

Anna Niestroj, from M∅nster Patterns

Graça Paz

Manufacturer

Sr. Jorge

Ofertas de Outono

Video

by Cray Cray Productions

Lara Schürmann,

and Michael Karg.

by FES Agency